And now for some news as fantastic as it was inevitable: friend of HBT Jonah Keri, fresh of his bestselling success, The Extra 2%, just signed a deal to write the definitive history of the Montreal Expos.

The details are over at Jonah’s blog. The only slight bummer: his publisher has it slated to come out in 2014 to coincide with round number anniversaries of the Expos’ move to Washington and their magical but tragically-aborted run at the NL East title in 1994.* Perchance Jonah can persuade them to move it up a bit since it’s a topic people will — or at least should — be very interested in. If not, fine, we’ll wait.

The Expos are gone. Someday, sooner than we think, so too will be the people who helped define that historic — and historically bizarre — baseball franchise. It makes me really happy that someone is going to capture it all for posterity, and that that someone is a person who loves and mourns the Expos as much as Jonah Keri does.

*Note: I presume that Jonah will not let his Expos fandom get in the way of the fact that, if the 1994 season had continued, the Atlanta Braves would have easily made up the six-game gap, overtaken the Expos and won the World Series that year. I mean, it’s just science.

I would love to read this. I think Montreal is a beautiful city, but it’s sad when I go the Bell Centre and see the retired Expos numbers hanging next to Canadiens jerseys because there’s nowhere else to put them. Someone may have to remind me about this in 3 years though.

If you pretend that Guillermo Mota basically started last night’s Giants/Twins game instead of Bumgarner’s folly, you could have watched dueling former Expos!

Craig, you do know that the NL champion from 1994 would have played the Royals in the WS? They were the hottest team in baseball when the strike happened and of course would have won the WS over the Braves or anyone else!

It’s a little generous using the word “historic” when describing the old Montreal Expos, tradition was not the strong suit of that franchise. Basically, all you had were a few hall of famers, and one division title, with speculation about what the 1994 team could have done. In roughly 25 years, not a whole lot was accomplished in Montreal.

Not saying it won’t be an interesting read, but the Expos are one of those nondescript sports franchises, with very light footprint on baseball history. The Washington fans who didn’t have a connection with Montreal prior to the relocation, are rightfully focused on the Nationals history since 2005.

Baseball would have worked in Montreal, And still could if they had a stadium closer to the city, and the Canadian dollar stays close to par with the US. The Canadian dollar was a killer for the Jets, Nordiques and Expos. The old falling apart stadium way the heck outta town didnt help either. But there was a culture for baseball in Montreal in the late 70’s early 80’s. You’re talking about the city that took in Jackie Robinson as a minor leaguer and players liked coming to Montreal back then.